Northward

The best way to start out a fresh, shiny new year is to hit the road and see a new exhibit!

Handsome Husband and I did just that recently, taking Highway 81 north several hundred miles to see “Harvey Dunn, the Complete Collection" at the South Dakota Art Museum on the campus of South Dakota State college in Brookings SD.

Harvey Dunn was one of the most important illustrators in the early part of the 20^th century. The paintings he created were dashing, romantic, aggressive and expressive, often becoming more interesting than the stories themselves.  During WWI he was assigned to chronicle the war. His "as it is" paintings did not sit well and he had to wait for other opportunities to share his pictorial experiences.

1928 House to House Combat for The American Legion Monthly

When he stepped away from illustration, he strode confidently into recreating the landscape and lifestyle of his youth. Those are the pieces we traveled northward to see.

The Prairie Is My Garden, one of  Harvey Dunn's first independent paintings.

Dunn, born in 1884, was raised in the same prairie neighborhood as Laura Ingalls Wilder of Little House on the Prairie fame; the wide-open untamed rolling hills of eastern South Dakota – had South Dakota been a state then. (That didn't happen for another 5 years.)  His ability to express the loneliness, strength, camaraderie, determination to survive, as well as the vastness and power of the open prairie, is unsurpassed.

In many ways this part of the country hasn't changed all that much from Mr. Dunn's youth. Spare and beautiful.

HH and I spent a lovely 2 days wandering the museum, admiring and studying each painting. No doubt the staff will spend a few hours today wiping nose prints off the surface of the artwork. For me the best part of an art exhibit is getting right up close to see what’s going on. If I could climb right inside the artist’s apron I’d do that. Studying brush strokes, what they cover, how they swirl…oh!

Closeup of Model on Sofa, circa 1929

Closeup of The Prairie Is My Garden, worked on over several years

Closeup from happy Hunting Ground

(Note to museum staff: Stop hanging “salon style”. Just stop it. There’s a reason it’s no longer done. To hang a painting 10 feet off the ground is agonizingly frustrating to the viewer, not to mention the artist who would love for you to actually see it. That Handsome Husband refused to let me climb on his shoulders so that I could put my nose to artwork in the upper elevations is a testament to his patience and sensibility. Had he not been there insisting I keep my feet firmly planted on terra firma, my Plan B was to pick the lock on the janitor’s closet and free the stash of rolling ladders. (It just now occurs to me…does HH really enjoy these exhibits, or is he trying to keep me out of the hoosegow?))

I disavow any knowledge of the scuff marks climbing toward the upper level.

This is an exhibit that will stick with me for a long time. The power and confidence in each stroke of paint, the stories he told, the love he had for the wide open spaces of his homeland…I've got a lot to think about.  Hues, application, composition, courage, attitude - it all shows up on the canvas.

After the Blizzard n.d. by Harvey Dunn

Rough Country n.d. by Harvey Dunn

To see paintings up close is exciting and invigorating, like being able to sit alongside the artist and witness the paint being mixed and laid on.  Frustratingly, he left very little in the way of explanation or process. It'll be up to me to dig in and learn about that in my own way.
Thanks HH, you're a peach for coming along and making this an exceptional way to start the new year.

HH celebrating the first weekend of 2015 with his own version of Hot Tub Time Machine, courtesy of Brookings Super 8.

Your Holiday Guide

If the amount of dire warnings and special offers from my inbox is any indication, the Great Day of Gift Giving is nearly upon us.

Some of you are behind the eight ball. You’ve postponed your shopping safari for the creative individual in your life and now little sweat beads are beginning to form on your upper lip when you realize you have no idea what to do.

Take a deep breath, I’m here to help.

The following is my handy dandy idea gift list for those of you who have loved ones who construct, discover and imagine.

Sadly for you, Handsome Husband is already taken. He’s one of a kind, sorry ‘bout that.

Otherwise, consider offering -

A quiet space to work. It doesn’t have to have 12 foot ceilings or north windows - although that would be really awesome. A space all ones own, even if it's just a comfy chair, is important.

Time; time to ponder, time to wonder, time to put down in whatever medium they choose the results of that wondering and pondering. Time to grow.

A self-cleaning work space. (Oooh, I wanna get me one a those. Maybe next year.)

Acceptance. Of them, of their field, of their output. 

An ear. No, not like Van Gogh. I was thinking more in terms of listening. We creative types need to vent, mostly in a way that lets the fears and frustrations and delights and victories and annoyances out. Notice I didn’t add ‘advice’ to that. Ears open, mouth shut.

Toss in a few open-ended questions. Something like; how do you feel about that? Tell me about…, or how does that..?.

Exhibits. Go! Spend time looking with your sweetie. Use a few of those open ended-questions to find out what they find interesting. 

Pick one, two, or all of the above. Wrap them in ribbons and a hug. You'r welcome.

The Nebraska Project

If you've never been to Nebraska, you really need to see this.

If you live in Nebraska, you really need to see this.  

©Patricia Scarborough Loup River oil

Seriously, it is good enough to snag the attention of the Washington Post Photo Editor Nicole Crowder.

I recently had the great pleasure of meeting photographer Bill Frakes and his partner in Straw Hat Visuals, Laura Heald. They were traveling headlong through the state, creating and collecting images and conversations of what the uninformed call ‘fly-over country’.

©Patricia Scarborough Turkey Creek pastel

  

The result of their travels is The Nebraska Project, a collection of exquisite photographs and videos showcasing the people, rolling hills and endless skies of this place.

They see the Nebraska I see. They see the shadows, the rhythms, and textures, and I am reminded again of how lucky I am to live here.  They also see the people of this state for who we are; deeply thoughtful, hilarious, well-read, quirky, and really, really interesting. Pretty darned good looking too. Actually, we're alot like people everywhere.

As serendipity would have it, they ended up at my house one very foggy morning in the middle of their trip. I wrote about it toward the end of October.  You can see the final result in the segment titled Makers.

©Patricia Scarborough  Morning Song  oil

So go see what Bill and Laura saw. Listen in on the stories and lives of those of us who live in the center of the world.

Observations

Gee, I’m kind of impressed with myself.

©2014 Patricia Scarborough   First Hard Freeze 9x12 oil  

It’s been 6 ½ years since I started this blog. Six years and six months, over 300 posts.  Several hair styles, dozens of tubes of pigment, a handful of brushes and at least a million words, some of which even made it to the final posting.

As memory serves, the origins of my writing were begun as a response to an Alyson Stanfield coaching directive: An artist must have a blog. And so I did. How’s that for an inspired beginning?

This weekend a lovely afternoon was spent sifting through the thoughts and fears I’ve shared during my foray into this artist’s life. My ramblings and your kind responses were like leafing through my high school annual. Oh, the way we were!

I find I’m a fair writer, and a middling thinker; not so smart that you can’t follow along, not insipid as to cause you to look away and never come back. You’re reading this after all, aren’t you?

But has it helped me in my studio? After all, that was the point of my leaving the comfort of a steady paycheck. How does sifting ideas from piles of disengaged thoughts make it easier to use paint? What do words collected in cob-webby spaces have to do with images squeezed from paint tubes? Has writing to you made it easier to be me?

Y’know, I think it has.

©2014 Patricia Scarborough  Breaking Skies  30x30 oil

This practice has allowed me to take all of the study, the painting, the exhibiting, reading, practicing, success, failure, triumph and dismal disappointment, one week at a time. It’s been easier – not easy, but easier – to identify the frustrations and ironies and hilarities and loneliness and grand celebrations of a creative life by separating myself from them with a certain detached observation for the benefit of the blog. Reading through them now allows an older, more certain me to reconnect more sweetly with those realities.

Who’d a thunk? I’m not writing for you, I’m writing for me.

To prove I can. To show I don’t have to. For the challenge. For the pleasure. For clarity. To reveal – or to veil - a truth.

To accept that I'm impressed with myself, ever so politely.